The Logic of Life in the Times

The Times (London) has published two nice extracts from the Logic of Life, plus me reading from the book.

It’s time to dispose of an age-old question. Do people spend their lives looking for “the one”, the person – or, less ambitiously, a particular type of person – who is the perfect match for them temperamentally, socially, professionally, financially and sexually? Or do people adjust their standards depending on what they can get? In other words, are the romantics right or the cynics?

I’ll admit that I can’t answer that question definitively – not even the most ingenious of today’s new generation of economists have devised an experiment that will prove whether people lower their sights in response to market conditions when it comes to marriage. But there is some suggestive evidence from the study of speed-dating, courtesy of the economists Michèle Belot and Marco Francesconi.